sailing to the edge of the world

Hi, new people following me from the DW friending meme! And people who have followed/friended me in the last couple of years in general. For one reason and another, it's taken me this long to write an intro post, and I don't think I ever did one the last time I did a friending meme at all.

So - hi! I'm sholio/sholio, or Layla. I live in Alaska, and I'm a graphic designer, artist, and writer. I used to mainly do freelance graphic design, but over the last couple of years I've transitioned to writing for a living, and I do that full-time now. I write het paranormal romance as Lauren Esker (also on Facebook and on Amazon). I've written a few M/M books in the past as Layla M. Wier (that pen name is basically retired at this point, though), and I'm planning on launching a new pen name this summer for fantasy and sci-fi that's not really romance as such, but tends to feature LGBTQ+ characters and pairings. I haven't settled on that name yet. I also write ultra-commercial erotica-laced het romance as part of a group pen name, which I'm not naming because we're trying to preserve the polite fiction that we are a single person (a la the way kids' series like Nancy Drew or Trixie Belden are written by a number of writers working under the same name) but I'm happy to tell people what it is if you ask in a PM or on a non-public post. I just don't want to give it out in public.

Feel free to PM me or email me at laureneskerwriter at gmail if you would like to try any of my books. I'm happy to hand them out to flist people for free. :D Lauren's website also has a couple of free stories, with more to come.

I used to be active in the small press comics scene, and I've been doing a weekly sci-fi webcomic called Kismet since 2002 (give or take a few years' hiatus in the middle there). It's all online for free. The first book, Hunter's Moon, is archived at my website and the current book, Sun-Cutter, updates every Monday and is about 160 pages so far. (It's on Tumblr, so you can follow it there, but the nav buttons don't work on mobile. There is a partial archive at my website, along with some short side comics. These are only partly archived because my other archive site went down and I haven't gotten around to finishing getting them up at my site yet. I really should do that ....) Anyway, the Kismet comic also has a Patreon where I post sketchbook pages, development art, glimpses of upcoming stuff and so forth, and a Tumblr sideblog for similar content and page announcements, kismetcity, which I really need to do more with.

(Kismet is what the icon on this post is from.)

So that's the pro stuff! But you're probably here for the fan stuff! My fanfic is all on AO3, except for most of the Stargate stuff from 2006-2008, which can be found on my old website and will be on AO3 ... uh ... eventually? On Tumblr, I'm laylainalaska/sholiofic - the first is for reblogs and gifs and general chatting with people; the second is for fic and fic announcements, where I also periodically solicit prompts for whatever fandoms I'm in at the moment. I tend to be a fannish serial monogamist - although right now, unusually for me, I seem to have two main ones, Agent Carter and The Flash (and the DC universe shows in general), and I'm still kinda dipping in and out of White Collar and a few other side fandoms. I mod collarcorner (White Collar gen prompt community) and also run SSR Confidential, an Agent Carter fanworks exchange that will have its signups in March.

So basically what you're going to get around here is a lot of fan squee about whatever I'm into at the moment (Flash and Legends of Tomorrow come back on Tuesday, eeeeee!!), fic, and intermittent chatter about writing/comics/my life/etc. Due to current events, there may also be more politics around here than there used to be, but I'll put it behind a cut.

And that's me! It's really great seeing so much renewed activity around here, and I'm going to try to be more active on DW/LJ in 2017. (HOW IS IT 2017 ALREADY, WHAT.) I'm looking forward to chatting with you all, whether you're just stopping in or have been here for years. :D